What it's like to plan an inauguration, according to people who pulled one off

When Donald J. Trump takes the oath of office on Friday morning
and becomes the 45th president of the United States, the pomp and
circumstance surrounding him will have been the result of a
whirlwind of planning and fundraising.

This is what it was like to plan an inauguration, that of
outgoing President Barack Obama, according to two of the people
who were responsible for pulling it off.

Emmett Beliveau had spent months as Obama's advance man,
organizing and coordinating all the logistics of nearly all
campaign events, from his announcement to his victory speech in
Grant Park in Chicago, before he became CEO of 2009's
Presidential Inaugural Committee.

"A good way to describe it is starting, running, and winding down
a midsize business in the course of about 10 weeks," Beliveau,
who is now COO of an entertainment and music-festival company
called C3 Presents, said in an interview.

Starting in mid-November, he had to obtain 25 jumbo TV screens
and speakers along the National Mall. Concerts had to be
booked and celebrities coddled. He had to orchestrate a train
trip that would transport the president from
Illinois to Washington, D.C., picking up Vice President Joe
Biden along the way.

Too many porta-potties

With record turnout expected, he realized he had new problems to
solve. Part of the Mall, typically used as a staging area where
parade animals are kept and fed, needed to be freed so that more
attendees could fit. So he had to quickly find somewhere else to
keep the horses. The work was important but not always glamorous.

"I think we had 5000 porta-potties," Beliveau said. Along the way
he learned there's such a thing as too many porta-potties. "They
can become a hindrance to crowd flow."

Then there's fundraising. While Congress and the military pay for
some of the essential parts of the inauguration, like the
swearing-in ceremony, it's up to the Presidential Inaugural
Committee to foot the bill for everything from galas to toilets.
The committee has to raise millions of dollars quickly.

Screnar had been deputy finance director for the 2008 campaign
and knew how to raise money. But now he had to raise about $50
million in a few weeks. That year, Obama forbade corporate giving
and all donations above $50,000. There was so much interest in
the election that the restrictions didn't hinder fundraising, but
it created a logistical challenge managing a deluge of smaller
gifts. That's likely less of an issue for President-elect Donald
Trump's inaugural committee, which has received large corporate
gifts and
reportedly raised $90 million.

"Most of us — including all the leadership — had never done this
before," he said. Making matters worse, the bills for the events
were coming fast. They needed to spend the money as soon as they
raised it. "Everything has to be signed almost immediately."

President Obama and the
First Lady participate in the inauguration parade in
2009.Reuters

When January 20 arrived, Beliveau's planning had paid off, but he
had a traffic issue. Early in the morning, he was on one side of
Washington, at a command center, keeping an eye on buses. Then he
realized there was no good way to get to the Capitol for the
swearing-in.

Trying to figure out how to get there quickly, he had an idea
that only the guy running the show — with every security pass a
person could muster — could have pulled off.

"I said, why don't we just drive up Pennsylvania Avenue," which
was closed for the parade. He looked up the map of checkpoints. A
Secret Service agent, incredulous, asked him if he was
serious.

"And I said 'yeah,'" Beliveau recalls. "And they said 'all
right.' We drove up a closed Pennsylvania Avenue that was already
ready for the parade and lined with military and law
enforcement."